About the Electronic Reserves

What are Electronic Reserves (E-Reserves)?

The University of Maine System Libraries make selected course reserve materials available for students to read at any time, from any location when they connect to URSUS, the Libraries' on-line catalog. Students may access electronic reserves materials with the proper software, and a computer connected to the UMS network or to another service provider.

To view E-Reserves documents, you will need a Web browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer, and a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader running on your Macintosh or Windows PC. For best response times and viewing results, your network connection should be to theUMS network via ethernet or a minimum modem speed of 9600 bps, although a faster speed is more satisfying.

Most E-Reserves materials are presented as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, which may be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader. The E-Reserves system also provides direct links from course lists in URSUS to individual faculty course home pages. This material is accessible using a Web browser and does not require the Acrobat Reader for viewing.

Students may view and print or save for later use course materials which faculty have placed "on reserve." Current electronic course materials include sample exams, lecture notes, journal articles, images, course syllabi.

No. Books and other copyrighted material are only available at the Reserves Desk. For the present, most material available in electronic format will also be available in print at the Reserves Desk.

How do I download the Adobe Acrobat reader?

Acrobat readers for multiple platforms are available from Adobe's website. Download Acrobat Reader for your computer. It is free and most electronic course materials are PDF (Portable Document Format) files readable only with the Reader.

Easy to follow instructions guide you to setting up your computer so that the Acrobat Reader will automatically activate whenever a PDF file is selected.

More information about Acrobat® is available at Adobe's Acrobat download page.